"No, no, no; in the air," said the little bicycle impatiently--"like a balloon. Wouldn't that be fine? Anybody can float on the water, even an old cork; but when it comes to floating in the air, that's not only fun but it means being talented. A bicycle that could float in the air would be the finest thing in the world." "That's very likely true," said Jimmieboy, "but how are you going to do it? You can't soar." "Not with my tires filled with air," replied Bikey, "but if you'll take the hose from the gas stove and fasten one end to the supply valve of my tires, the other to the gas fixture, fill the tires up with gas and get aboard I'll bet you we can have a ride that'll turn out to be a regular sky-scraper." It sounded like an attractive proposition, but Jimmieboy wanted to know something more about it before consenting to trifle with the gas pipe. "What good'll the gas do?" he asked. "Why, don't you know that gas makes balloons go up?" said Bikey. "They just cram the balloon as full of gas as they can get it and up she sails. That's my idea. Fill my rubber tires with gas and up we'll go. What do you say?" "I'll do it," cried Jimmieboy with enthusiasm. "I'd love more than anything else to go biking through the clouds, for to tell the truth clouds look a great deal softer than grocery carts and lawn mowers, and I wouldn't mind running into one of them so much. Skybicycling"---- "Pooh! What a term," retorted Bikey. "Skybicycling! Why don't you use your mind a little and call it skycycling?" Jimmieboy laughed. "Perhaps skycling would be better than that," he suggested. "Or skiking," smiled the little bicycle. "If it works you know I'll be simply grand. I'll be a sort of Christopher Columbus among bicycles, and perhaps I'll be called a skicycle instead of bicycle. Oh, it would be too beautiful!" he added, dancing joyously on his hind wheel. "It will indeed," said Jimmieboy, "but let's hurry. Seems to me as if I could hardly wait." "Me too," chuckled Bikey. "You go up and get the rubber tube, fasten it to the gas pipe, and inside of ten minutes we'll be off--if it works." So Jimmieboy rushed off to the attic, seized a piece of rubber tubing that had been used to carry the supply of gas to his little nursery stove in the winter, and running back to where Bikey was waiting fastened it to the fixture in the hall. "Now," said Bikey, unscrewing the cap of his pneumatic tire, "hold the other end there and we'll see how it goes." Jimmieboy hastened to obey, and for five minutes watched his strange little friend anxiously. "Feel any lighter?" he said. "Yes," whispered Bikey, almost shivering with delight. "My front wheel is off the floor already. I think twenty feet more will be enough there, and when you've filled up the hind tire--ta--ta--ti--tum--ti--too--ha--ha! Then we'll go skiking." The plan was followed out, and when both tires had taken in as much gas as they could hold Bikey called hoarsely to Jimmieboy:--